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Documentation for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

This site is where you can find the official documentation developed and
maintained by the Ubuntu Documentation Project.

This page contains documentation for Ubuntu 10.04, the latest stable
version, released in April 2010. If you can't find what you are looking for
here, try the excellent source of community contributed
documentation<https://help.ubuntu.com/community>
.

If I create a launchpad from another computer( not mine and happily running Windows Vista), will it do anything too above referenced computer and if I can't even get to a start page, what do I do with my computer?

I believe your best option is to first download a livecd of 10.4 and see if
the system can boot on it.
If it can, you maybe able to read the data you had on your old drive and
potentially be able back it up or transfer it.
If the data is not a concern, test out the livecd and if it works try a new
install instead of an upgrade.

I bought my lappy about a year ago and install 9.04. After that i never
install another SO, but when lucid lynx was born i'm so grazies to
"imigrate". So my solution is upgrade it from 9.04-9.10-10.04. Indeed, the
transformation is not far from problem. But it's a minor problem, like i
can't use an application to connect yahoo or facebook directly. My solution
is maybe you should find the error log and find it to community like i did
before ;).

I also had the same problem ,but what I did was installed the newly
installed patch or driver and partitioned
my drive reinstalled everything starting with windows and then installed
ubuntu and installed bootloader, whitch allowed me
to choose which OS to load first ..
thanks

Upgrades are always iffy. Multiple upgrades are just problems waiting to
happen and not worth the effort, IMO.

The best way to upgrade is to to do a fresh installation and have a separate
home partition. This means that you keep all of your documents and settings.
You can also automate the installation of applications by backing up your
apt list to a text file and then tell apt to install all of the files in the
list. If done this way, you are back to where you were before, but with a
new installation.

However, there are still many potential problems, especially if you have
finicky or unusual hardware. Any upgrade no matter how it is done is not
without a few wrinkles.

The bottom line is to set things up right with a separate home partition and
then do your homework to find potential problems before you do the upgrade.

I have had the same problems with doing the same upgrade path, with
the additions of CUPS working one time and maybe not the next, same for
Samba (highly annoying), panels disappear, Virtual machine may or may
not run,.....

How is the best way to keep data and programs, and do a fresh install?
Copy home folder to an external drive and copy it back to hard drive
after fresh install???

I hope I am not hijacking this thread as I see this as a solution to the
OP's problem too.

The one caution I would make is to run the LiveCD first and make sure all of your devices are compatible with 10.4. There have been some issues mentioned in ITToolbox with sound card drivers, etc. Just make sure it is worth going through this upgrade. V 9.1 is a long term support release -- I haven't seen that on 10.04 (I could be wrong).

@debra: It's the 10.04 that the LTS version with the previous LTS one being 8.04 - agree with checking the hardware with a Live CD but some older systems can't handle the GUI installer so the alternate install is needed. Once the initial install is done they both end up with the same installation.

Following the original point, however. I would be reluctant to install 10.4 on a system that couldn't handle the LiveCD for it. Even though it may work for a LinuxPerson, that is not the same as a LinuxUser. It takes some knowledge to use the alternate install and more to modify an harddrive install to a stable OS when there is marginal equipment involved.

@debra: "It takes some knowledge to use the alternate install and more to modify an harddrive install to a stable OS when there is marginal equipment involved." Actually the alternate install runs pretty much the same, just not a 'pretty' and the end result is a fully working Ubuntu as you'd get with the normal install. Agree with the 'marginal equipment' comment but here the netbook mixes are good as they are less demanding on the hardware. <br />
<br />
@Liz: as the system boots press the 'Esc' key and you'll get to an option screen where you can repair corrupted packages etc. It looks like the upgrade killed the ethernet port but it should be active in this repair mode. Agree with the comments about clean installs vs upgrades - in the long run it's less hassle wiping and starting all over again with *any* OS !!!

Thank you, I have been cleaning up and trying to boot from Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-24-generic (recovery mode) and after making room cleaning up , etc. I still end up with a black screen after the new OS display page disappears. I am considering just ordering the disc (do you recommend getting the 9.10 and the 10.04? Space does not seem to be an issue.). Is there any way to save the files i have before doing that?

Maybe you could boot to an Ubuntu LiveCD, then plugin a usb external drive and backup your files to that before the reinstall.

Also, as a rule of thumb, I always boot a machine to the LiveCD for the distro that I intend to use first before installing. This way I can check to see if everything is working good before committing to the installation of the operating system.

Once you do finally get Ubuntu GNU/Linux setup, it should be a no brainer to keep it running after that. Just think, if you could have purchased this PC pre-loaded with Ubuntu, you wouldn't have this hassle because you'd likely have some type of restore-dvd to simplify the process.

Sounds like ubuntu 9 is less cooperative than 10.04.1 I have had the
pleasure of the Ubuntu desktop on my original drive before upgrades but
decided on the Kubuntu netbook edition and I just have to figure out some of
the system configurations as well as the kd wallet security as it sometimes
won't even accept a single input for password entry so I would like to
disable that function and apply external security only as since I am the
only user it is not needed.

With one exception, Ubuntu versions all end in either 04 (not 4) or 10,
meaning that they are released in April or October. The number before the
decimal is the year of release. The next version will be 10.10, released in
2010 in October and this time it will be 10-10-10, ie. on the tenth of
October (it is usally on the last Thursday of the month). Who says you can't
have fun with numbering your distribution?

As for your problem, it is easier for new users to rewrite grub using the
Live CD than in editing grub from the prompt. If you understand the file
system and how Ubuntu loads than editing grub is not so hard. Otherwise it
is just plain confusing.

Thank you Mr. Linux Canuck, for your email once I read the opener I see that
some study time is needed for me to manipulate a working structure In
Kubuntu which is on my second drive partition "E" with a copy of xp pro sp3
following a unallocated space of 32 gb and labeled "F" this partition is a
clean copy of my first drive single partition label"C" so as you can see I
am committed to the Kubuntu install with ample growing space as "e" is 44 gb
in size
thanks for your input and I will be on "E" later today!